In Ancient Egyptian Phonology. James Allen studies the sounds of the language spoken by the ancient Egyptians through application of the most recent methodological advances for phonological reconstruction. Using the internal evidence of the language, he proceeds from individual vowels and consonants to the sound of actual ancient Egyptian texts. Allen also explores variants, alternants, and the development of sound in texts, and touches on external evidence from Afroasiatic cognate languages. The most up to date work on this topic, Ancient Egyptian Phonology is an essential resource for Egyptologists and will also be of interest to scholars and linguists of African and Semitic languages.

The Living Inca Town presents a rich case study of tourism in Ollantaytambo, a rapidly developing destination in the southern Peruvian Andes and the starting point for many popular treks to Machu Picchu. Tourism is generally welcomed in Ollantaytambo, as it provides a steady stream of work for local businesses, particularly those run by women. However, the obvious material inequalities between locals and tourists affect many interactions and have contributed to conflict and aggression throughout the tourist zones. Based on a number of research visits over the course of fifteen years, The Living Inca Town examines the experiences and interactions of locals, visitors, and tourism brokers. The book makes room for unique perspectives and uses innovative visual methods, including photovoice images and pen and ink drawings, to represent different viewpoints of day-to-day tourist encounters. The Living Inca Town vividly illustrates how tourism can perpetuate gendered and global inequalities, while also exploring new avenues to challenge and renegotiate these roles.

Revolutions in the Desert investigates the development of pastoral nomadism in the arid regions of the ancient Near East, challenging the prevailing notion that such societies left few remains appropriate for analytic study. Few prior studies have approached the deeper past of desert nomadic societies, which have been primarily recognized only as a complement to the study of sedentary agricultural societies in the region. Based on decades of archaeological field work in the Negev of southern Israel, both excavations and surveys, and integrating materials from adjacent regions, Revolutions in the Desert offers a deeper and more dynamic view of the rise of herding societies beyond the settled zone. Rosen offers the first archaeological analysis of the rise of herding in the desert, from the first introduction of domestic goats and sheep into the arid zones, more than eight millennia ago, to the evolution of more recent Bedouin societies. The adoption of domestic herds by hunter-gatherer societies, contemporary with and peripheral to the first farming settlements, revolutionized all aspects of desert life, including subsistence, trade, cult, social organization, and ecology. Inviting processual comparison to the agricultural revolution and the secondary spread of domestication beyond the Near East, this volume traces the evolution of nomadic societies in the archaeological record and examines their ecological, economic and social adaptations to the deserts of the Southern Levant. With maps and illustrations from the author's own collection, Revolutions in the Desert is a thoughtful and engaging approach to the archaeology of desert nomadic societies.

In The King and the Land, Stephen C. Russell offers a history of space and power in the biblical world by demonstrating how the monarchies in ancient Israel and Judah asserted their power over strategically important spaces such as privately-held lands, religious buildings, collectively-governed towns, and urban water systems. Case studies in the book treat Solomon's use of foreign architecture (1 Kings 5-8), David's dedication of land to Yahweh (2 Samuel 24), Jehu's decommissioning of Baal's temple (2 Kings 10), Absalom's navigation of the collective politics of Levantine towns (2 Samuel 15), and Hezekiah's reshaping of the tunnels that supplied Jerusalem with water (2 Kings 20; 2 Chronicles 32). Steeped in archaeological and textual evidence, this book contextualizes Israelite and Judahite royal and tribal politics within broader patterns of ancient Near Eastern spatial power. By providing a historical investigation into the nature of power and physical space in the Iron Age Levant, this book also offers fresh literary readings of the biblical texts that anchor its theses.

Women, Gender and Identity in Third Intermediate Period Egypt clarifies the role of women in Egyptian society during the first millennium BCE, allowing for more nuanced discussions of women in the Third Intermediate Period. It is an intensive study of a corpus that is both geographically and temporally localized around the city of Thebes, which was the cultural and religious centre of Egypt during this period and home to a major national necropolis. Unlike past studies which have relied heavily on literary evidence, Li presents a refreshing material culture-based analysis of identity construction in elite female burial practices. This close examination of the archaeology of women's burial presents an opportunity to investigate the social, professional and individual identities of women beyond the normative portrayals of the subordinate wife, mother and daughter. Taking a methodological and material culture-based approach which adds new dimensions to scholarly and popular understandings of ancient Egyptian women, this fascinating and important study will aid scholars of Egyptian history and archaeology, and anyone with an interest in women and gender in the ancient world.

Both born to power and wealth, and raised by courtiers, they lived lives of aristocrats and landowners, in poor health and with uncertain futures. Though they lived over 3000 years apart, the lives of Egyptian King Tutankhamun and the fifth Lord Carnarvon share many parallels, not the least of which was Carnarvon's sponsorship of the team that found the pharaoh's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Brian Fagan's narrative expertly weaves these two lives together, showing similarities and differences between these two powerful men. -Both figures are placed in their historical context, showing the political and social machinations of 18th Dynasty Egypt and 20th century archaeological exploration in Egypt.-Grounded in historical and archaeological research, the two figures are made to come alive as real people.-An Afterword by the author shows archaeologists how to tell research stories that are accessible to a wider audience.

Ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves near the site of Qumran in 1947, this mysterious cache of manuscripts has been associated with the Essenes, a 'sect' configured as marginal and isolated. Scholarly consensus has held that an Essene library was hidden ahead of the Roman advance in 68 CE, when Qumran was partly destroyed. With much doubt now expressed about aspects of this view, the Essenes, the Scrolls and the Dead Sea systematically reviews the surviving historical sources, and supports an understanding of the Essenes as an influential legal society, at the centre of Judaean religious life, held in much esteem by many and protected by the Herodian dynasty, thus appearing as 'Herodians' in the Gospels.
Opposed to the Hasmoneans, the Essenes combined sophisticated legal expertise and autonomy with an austere regimen of practical work, including a specialisation in medicine and pharmacology. Their presence along the north-western Dead Sea is strongly indicated by two independent sources, Dio Chrysostom and Pliny the Elder, and coheres with the archaeology. The Dead Sea Scrolls represent not an isolated library, quickly hidden, but burials of manuscripts from numerous Essene collections, placed in jars in caves for long-term preservation. The historical context of the Dead Sea area itself, and its extraordinary natural resources, as well as the archaeology of Qumran, confirm the Essenes' patronage by Herod, and indicate that they harnessed the medicinal material the Dead Sea zone provides to this day.

This authoritative English translation of the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts is an essential resource for all Egyptologists. The new edition reprints Faulkner's whole work in one volume. Filling the gap between the Pyramid Texts and the New Kingdom Book of the Dead, these writings were intended to supply the deceased with the speeches he would need to achieve a secure and important position in the next world. As such they supply valuable insights into Egyptian beliefs and mortuary practices. Concise textual notes are kept to a minimum, allowing the character of the texts to be experienced as a whole. Indexes cover divinities, localities, celestial bodies, selected Egyptian words in translation and also the parts of boats and sailing gear that figure prominently in some spells.

At the center of the world-famous pyramid field of the Memphite necropolis lies a group of pyramids, temples, and tombs named after the nearby village of Abusir. Long overshadowed by the more familiar pyramids at Giza and Saqqara, this area has nonetheless been the site, for the last fifty years, of an extensive operation to discover its past.This thoroughly updated in-depth study documents the uncovering by a dedicated team of Czech archaeologists of a hitherto neglected wealth of ancient remains dating from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period. This is Abusir, realm of Osiris, God of the dead, and its story is one of both modern archaeology and the long-buried mysteries that it seeks to uncover.

In Ancient Egypt: State and Society, Alan B. Lloyd attempts to define, analyse, and evaluate the institutional and ideological systems which empowered and sustained one of the most successful civilizations of the ancient world for a period in excess of three and a half millennia. The volume adopts the premise that all societies are the product of a continuous dialogue with their physical context - understood in the broadest sense - and that, in order to achieve a successful symbiosis with this context, they develop an interlocking set of systems, defined by historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists as culture. Culture, therefore, can be described as the sum total of the methods employed by a group of human beings to achieve some measure of control over their environment. Covering the entirety of the civilization, and featuring a large number of up-to-date translations of original Egyptian texts, Ancient Egypt focuses on the main aspects of Egyptian culture which gave the society its particular character, and endeavours to establish what allowed the Egyptians to maintain that character for an extraordinary length of time, despite enduring cultural shock of many different kinds.

This Handbook aims to serve as a research guide to the archaeology of the Levant, an area situated at the crossroads of the ancient world that linked the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The Levant as used here is a historical geographical term referring to a large area which today comprises the modern states of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, western Syria, and Cyprus, as well as the West Bank, Gaza, and the Sinai. Unique in its treatment of the entire region, it offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the current state of the archaeology of the Levant within its larger cultural, historical, and socio-economic contexts. The Handbook also attempts to bridge the modern scholarly and political divide between archaeologists working in this highly contested region. Written by leading international scholars in the field, it focuses chronologically on the Neolithic through Persian periods - a time span during which the Levant was often in close contact with the imperial powers of Egypt, Anatolia, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia. This volume will serve as an invaluable reference work for those interested in a contextualised archaeological account of this region, beginning with the tenth millennium BCE 'agricultural revolution', until the conquest of Alexander the Great that marked the end of the Persian period.

This volume reconstructs the history of documentary practice in pharaonic Egypt from the early Old Kingdom to the major administrative changes imposed by the colonizing regimes of the Graeco-Roman period. Relating administrative and legal practice to the physical practicalities of the media used for writing, and through the close reading of primary textual sources, it examines how different types of documents - private and official - were created and used. It explores the ways in which the writing of documents was embedded deeply in the interactions between customary social practices, which were essentially oral, and in the penetration of outside hierarchies into local government. Eyre argues that the potential of the written document as evidence or proof was never fully exploited in the pharaonic period, even though writing was a powerful symbol and display of hierarchical authority. He presents the government as a system rooted in personal prestige and patronage structures, lacking the effective departmental hierarchies and archive systems that would represent a true bureaucratic system.

Ephesos is one of the most important archeological digs in the world. For 120 years Austrian archeologists have been at work on this magical site in western Turkey and continue to bring up spectacular finds. In this place archeologists have succeeded like nowhere else to make academia and the public aware of the distant past. In this book, Sabine Ladstatter, who leads the Ephesos dig, and award-winning photographer Lois Lammerhuber present the world of antiquity from a very special angle. Cats are to be found almost anywhere around the ancient city. They live in a very special environment. Sabine Ladstatter explains the nature of this extraordinary relationship and Lois Lammerhuber followed the cats of Ephesos on a magical mystery tour through an antique world of temples, stones, theaters and private houses."

Egyptian Archaeology explores ancient Egypt using a uniquely archaeological approach, drawing on original research to both synthesize and challenge existing scholarship. Written by leading Egyptologists, based on original research and fieldwork Illustrates how practical research is a vital component of any theory-based discussion about the ancient world Examines the cultural and historical processes of ancient Egypt from a global perspective Visually engaging with over 80 illustrations Chapters explore fundamental issues and themes, but focus on specific periods and key archaeological sites

The Cairo Genizah is considered one of the world's greatest Hebrew manuscript treasures. Yet the story of how over a quarter of a million fragments hidden in Egypt were discovered and distributed around the world, before becoming collectively known as "The Cairo Genizah," is far more convoluted and compelling than previously told. The full story involves an international cast of scholars, librarians, archaeologists, excavators, collectors, dealers and agents, operating from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and all acting with varying motivations and intentions in a race for the spoils. Basing her research on a wealth of archival materials, Jefferson reconstructs how these protagonists used their various networks to create key alliances, or to blaze lone trails, each one on a quest to recover ancient manuscripts. Following in their footsteps, she takes the reader on a journey down into ancient caves and tombs, under medieval rubbish mounds, into hidden attic rooms, vaults, basements and wells, along labyrinthine souks, and behind the doors of private clubs and cloistered colleges. Along the way, the reader will also learn about the importance of establishing manuscript provenance and authenticity, and the impact to our understanding of the past when either factor is in doubt.

The life of Arsinoe II (c. 316-c.270 BCE), daughter of Ptolemy Soter, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, is characterized by dynastic intrigue. Her marriage to her full brother Ptolemy II, king of Egypt, was the first of the sibling marriages that became the "dynastic signature" of the Ptolemies. With Ptolemy II, she ended her days in great wealth and security and was ultimately deified. However, in order to reach that point she was forced to endure two tumultuous marriages, both of which led her to flee for her life, leaving war, murder, and bloodshed in her wake. Throughout much of her life, Arsinoe controlled great wealth and exercised political influence, but domestic stability characterized only her last few years. Arsinoe was the model for the powerful role Ptolemaic women gradually acquired as co-rulers of their empire. Her image continued to play a role in dynastic loyalty and solidarity for centuries to come. Despite the fact that Arsinoe was the pivotal figure in the eventual evolution of regnal power for Ptolemaic women, and despite a considerable body of recent scholarship across many fields relevant to her life, there is no up-to-date biography in English on the life of this queen. Elizabeth Carney, in sifting through the available archaeological and literary evidence, creates an accessible and reasoned picture of this royal woman. In describing Arsinoe's significant role in the courts of Thrace and Alexandria, Carney dicusses the role of earlier Macedonian royal women in monarchy, the institution of sibling marriage, and the reasons for its longstanding success in Hellenistic Egypt. Ultimately, this book provides a broader view of an integral player in the Hellenistic world.

This book examines dwarfs in myth and everyday life in ancient Egypt and Greece. In both cultures physical beauty was highly admired, even to excess. What happened to those whose appearance did not conform to the 'ideal proportions'? The spectacular forms of dwarfism were always a focus of interest, and it is the most depicted disorder in antiquity. In this study Dr Dasen brings together for the first time a whole range of mostly unpublished or little-known iconographic, epigraphic, literary, and anthropological evidence. She covers areas such as the history of caricature and the portrait; medical history, in particular, the development of the perception of congenital disorders; social history; and history of religion, with questions on the magical and ritual efficiency of the malformed in sacred and theatrical contexts. She considers also the complex relations between mythology and ethnography, as shown, for example, in the Greek myth of the Pygmies. This is a fascinating work, with a wealth of insights for anyone interested in the history of medicine and the ancient world.

This groundbreaking study looks beyond biblical texts, which have had a powerful influence over our views of women's roles and worth, in order to reconstruct the typical everyday lives of women in ancient Israel. Carol Meyers argues that biblical sources alone do not give a true picture of ancient Israelite women because urban elite males wrote the vast majority of the scriptural texts and the stories of women in the Bible concern exceptional individuals rather than ordinary Israelite women. Drawing on archaeological discoveries and ethnographic information as well as biblical texts, Meyers depicts Israelite women not as submissive chattel in an oppressive patriarchy, but rather as strong and significant actors within their families and society. In so doing, she challenges the very notion of patriarchy as an appropriate designation for Israelite society.

Ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves near the site of Qumran in 1947, this mysterious cache of manuscripts has been associated with the Essenes, a 'sect' configured as marginal and isolated. Scholarly consensus has held that an Essene library was hidden ahead of the Roman advance in 68 CE, when Qumran was partly destroyed. With much doubt now expressed about aspects of this view, the Essenes, the Scrolls and the Dead Sea systematically reviews the surviving historical sources, and supports an understanding of the Essenes as an influential legal society, at the centre of Judaean religious life, held in much esteem by many and protected by the Herodian dynasty, thus appearing as 'Herodians' in the Gospels. Opposed to the Hasmoneans, the Essenes combined sophisticated legal expertise and autonomy with an austere regimen of practical work, including a specialisation in medicine and pharmacology. Their presence along the north-western Dead Sea is strongly indicated by two independent sources, Dio Chrysostom and Pliny the Elder, and coheres with the archaeology. The Dead Sea Scrolls represent not an isolated library, quickly hidden, but burials of manuscripts from numerous Essene collections, placed in jars in caves for long-term preservation. The historical context of the Dead Sea area itself, and its extraordinary natural resources, as well as the archaeology of Qumran, confirm the Essenes' patronage by Herod, and indicate that they harnessed the medicinal material the Dead Sea zone provides to this day.

Thebestselling Tabernacle pamphlet brings to life the Old Testament teaching on the Tabernacle in the Wilderness of Sinai, the place where God promised to dwell among his people. The full-color, glossy pamphlet features a cutaway illustration that provides an inside look at the Tabernacle. The artist's illustration indicates more than 15 important features of the Tabernacle, such as the Ark of the Covenant, the High Priest, and the Sacrifice, and how they related to our relationship with God today through Christ. Size: 8.5x 5.5, unfolds to 33 long. Fits inside most Bible covers. Compared to other Tabernacle study aids, The Tabernacle pamphlet is designed and written to be easy-to-understand and may be used for personal study or by a wide variety of groups. The Tabernacle is a tremendous teaching aid and an informative guide to teach on topics such as: What it was like to enter the Tabernacle The Pattern of Worship and the furnishings of the Tabernacle How the 12 Tribes of Israel camped around the Tabernacle in a specific order The Ark of the Covenant Old Testament Symbols of Jesus Aaron as High Priest and Jesus as the better High Priest The Tabernacle pamphlet illustration, created exclusively for Rose Publishing by renowned Bible artist Stan Stein, provides an amazing inside look at the Tabernacle and all its furnishings. But this visual teaching aid not only explains the Old Testament Tabernacle in detail, but also helps young and old alike understand the symbolic relationship between the Tabernacle and Jesus Christ.

Offering new insights based on recent archaeological discoveries in their heartland of modern-day Lebanon, Mark Woolmer presents a fresh appraisal of this fascinating, yet elusive, Semitic people. Discussing material culture, language and alphabet, religion (including sacred prostitution of women and boys to the goddess Astarte), funerary custom and trade and expansion into the Punic west, he explores Phoenicia in all its paradoxical complexity. Viewed in antiquity as sage scribes and intrepid mariners who pushed back the boundaries of the known world, and as skilled engineers who built monumental harbour cities like Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenicians were also considered (especially by their rivals, the Romans) to be profiteers cruelly trading in human lives. The author shows them above all to have been masters of the sea: this was a civilization that circumnavigated Africa two thousand years before Vasco da Gama did it in 1498. The Phoenicians present a tantalizing face to the ancient historian. Latin sources suggest they once had an extensive literature of history, law, philosophy and religion; but all now is lost. In this revised and updated edition, Woolmer takes stock of recent historiographical developments in the field, bringing the present edition up to speed with contemporary understanding.

This volume contains editions of texts, theological, literary, subliterary, and documentary. The theological section includes large fragments of the First Apocalypse of James (5533), an early Christian narrative of conversations between Jesus and his brother, James. The Greek text is otherwise lost and scholars have depended on two often conflicting Coptic versions. The first of seven magical papyri is a second-century exorcism manual (5542), and a series of potted lives of the Successors of Alexander the Great illuminates the history of ancient life-writing before Plutarch (5535). A fragment of commentary on Aristophanes (5536) and five grammatical texts (5537-41) complete Section II. Section III provides a mass of new evidence concerning slavery in the Roman world. The photographs show all the new theological, literary, and subliterary texts, and eleven of the documents.

In 1946 the first of the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries was made near the site of Qumran, at the northern end of the Dead Sea. Despite the much publicized delays in the publication and editing of the Scrolls, practically all of them had been made public by the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the first discovery. That occasion was marked by a spate of major publications that attempted to sum up the state of scholarship at the end of the twentieth century, including The Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (OUP 2000). These publications produced an authoritative synthesis to which the majority of scholars in the field subscribed, granted disagreements in detail.
A decade or so later, The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls has a different objective and character. It seeks to probe the main disputed issues in the study of the Scrolls. Lively debate continues over the archaeology and history of the site, the nature and identity of the sect, and its relation to the broader world of Second Temple Judaism and to later Jewish and Christian tradition. It is the Handbook's intention here to reflect on diverse opinions and viewpoints, highlight the points of disagreement, and point to promising directions for future research.

Written by an international and interdisciplinary team of distinguished scholars, The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine is an indispensable reference compendium on the day-to-day lives of Jews in the land of Israel in Roman times. Ranging from subjects such as clothing and domestic architecture to food and meals, labour and trade, and leisure time activities, the volume covers all the major themes in an encompassing yet easily accessible way. Individual chapters introduce the reader to the current state of research on particular aspects of ancient Jewish everyday life - research which has been greatly enriched by critical methodological approaches to rabbinic texts, and by the growing interest of archaeologists in investigating the lives of ordinary people. Detailed bibliographies inspire further engagement by enabling readers to pursue their own lines of enquiry.The Handbook will prove to be an invaluable reference work and tool for all students and scholars of ancient Judaism, rabbinic literature, Roman provincial history and culture, and of ancient Christianity.

The first half of the proceedings, Language in the Ancient Near East (in 2 parts), is available here. A workshop volume is available here. The topic of the meetings in St. Petersburg portion of the 53e RAI was, as the title indicates, city administration. Of the 19 papers published in this volume, 2 are based on plenary, opening papers; 16 discuss various aspects of administration from very early times in geographic regions stretching from the extreme south of Mesopotamia, through the middle and upper Euphrates, to Ugarit; and 3 discuss labor and professions in the Ur III period.